While the Kanako is away, the girls will play!
What They Say:
Episode 6 – Matsurika Holic
The Review:
Content: (please note that content portions of a review may contain spoilers)
There is definitely something fun when certain characters strike out to dominate an episode since it can really appeal to some of the more niche fans within a show. With Maria Holic Alive this week, it opens with Matsurika taking over the show where she talks about Kanako being sent off to study for a week and what that meant for the outside world. Turning it into Matsurika Holic, we get another completely original opening sequence that’s dominate by her, showing off the utter stupidity of Kanako, and replacing many other characters faces with masks of Matsurika herself. It is, to say the least, utterly priceless. They hit all the right notes in insulting Kanako within just two and a half minutes that you realize there will never ever by any way of taking Kanako seriously since we now know fully how everyone else views her.
With Kanako out of the way, we get to see what went on during that week while she eflt like she was spending a year studying. The main plot that comes out is the formation of a new trading card game based around rekijo styling of making a historical game with women as the characters, which makes sense for this all girls school to appeal to its audience since nobody seems to have any interest in boys at all. They’re not all going as hard and hungry for women as Kanako, but they all generally seem pretty disinterested in anything romantic or lustful in general, which does feel a little strange. The game itself doesn’t get much attention for most of it, but it’s fun to watch Mariya get into it by figuring out how to make it on the cheap, make more money with it and use everyone to her advantage in doing so.
Of course, there is a small segment to be done here that deals with a couple of the guys the show does deal in, but it has such a generally disconnected feeling to events going on at the same that it leaves you feeling a little bit cold. There is some fun to seeing Mariya’s brother and dealing with the Father about things, but these characters have had so little time overall in the course of the series that spending more time with them could be good, but here it just feels like empty space being filled since they didn’t know what else to do with it. The ending is certainly cute with Father and Kanako coming across each other, especially as she turned out after studying in there for a week, but this is the kind of episode that simply kept losing steam the further it went. Considering how strongly it started, it ended up going into some decidedly less than amusing areas.
In Summary:
Maria Holic Alive starts off with such promise this episode that it had me positively grinning from ear to ear to see if they’d actually do a whole episode around Matsurika. The first three minutes are pure gold and a whole lot of fun, but it loses a lot of that energy and spirit as it goes on. The card game stuff has its moments, but that’s the start of things going off the rails and it only falters more as it progresses. Taking an episode to show what a week without Kanako would be like offers up a lot of opportunities, but it feels like it was mostly wasted here. There are laughs to be had and some good jokes and gags to be found, it is a SHAFT show after all, but it left me less and less interested in it as it progressed. I can see easily replaying those first few minutes over and over though and just savoring the deliciousness of it all.
Grade: C+
Simulcast By: The Anime Network
Review Equipment:
Sony KDS-R70XBR2 70″ LCoS 1080P HDTV, Dell 10.1 Netbook via HDMI set to 1080p, Onkyo TX-SR605 Receiver and Panasonic SB-TP20S Multi-Channel Speaker System With 100-Watt Subwoofer.
